


into the shallow pool

by boompits



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4125681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boompits/pseuds/boompits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yamaguchi and Oikawa from high school to college: tacos, pimples, and a distinct lack of <i>I love you</i>'s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	into the shallow pool

**Author's Note:**

> In response to [minders' prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/4049.html?thread=596433#cmt596433) for saso2015! *U*
> 
> "All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies."  
> — _The Books of Bokonon_ , Book 1, Verse 1([x](http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/personal/bokonon.html))

**A useful and harmless sort of horseshit.**

That's what Yamaguchi figures Oikawa is. Beyond, of course, acutely observant setter sensibilities, a powerful serve, and a brilliant Captaincy (almost as good as Daichi-san's had been at the helm of Karasuno. Almost).

"You're so full of it," Yamaguchi says, the trace of a smile on his lips. It's an odd kind of role-reversal. Tsukishima is so intelligent that being around him is sometimes intimidating: he'll tear down anyone who says half a thing wrong. (It's scary, even if Yamaguchi is used to it. _Boy_ is he used to it.)

Oikawa, though...

Oikawa raises a brow. "Full of what, Yama-chan?"

"Full of shit," Iwaizumi supplies handily, stuffing his volleyball into his bag. "I'm going home. I don't care if you serve morons overwork yourselves anymore. _Don't_ , though." His tone is warning, like the rumble of a storm.

Oikawa huffs. "Well, fine. Guess you'll just have to miss out on our post-practice taco date then, huh, Iwa-chan."

Iwaizumi frowns, reproachful and unrepentant. "I hate tacos. They're unhealthy. If you're Japanese, you should eat rice." And then he leaves.

 

**One little white lie: "Tacos? I love tacos!"**

All Oikawa ever gets at their post-serve-practice dates is some guacamole with plain nachos, and maybe a salad. Then he'll talk and talk and talk while Yamaguchi wolfs down his three giant soft-shells-with-the-lot (serve practice makes him _hungry_ , okay), makes mm~hm? noises in (mostly) the right places and tries not to dribble ground beef down his chin. Oikawa Tooru almost definitely does not love tacos.

What does Yamaguchi care, though? Oikawa does as Oikawa wants, and Yamaguchi gets his tacos. He also gets the dirt on Oikawa's university team (it's a university that Tsukki had mentioned this one time, and that Yamaguchi, if he really wanted to buckle down, would also be able to get into)...

He gets to hear Oikawa laugh and see his too-slick smile, and gets to hear him say, "Hey, gross, Yama-chan, you've got avocado on your lip."

Oikawa's thumb isn't soft in the slightest. It's hard and volley-calloused despite the care he must take with the rest of his beauty regimen and perfectly-filed nails. It feels like a mark of pride as it brushes the side of Yamaguchi's mouth, and Yamaguchi can appreciate a little pride. He smiles.

He might not really know what Oikawa gets out of their little dates but, seeing as Oikawa is the one who keeps setting up serve practices, and challenging Yamaguchi to sprint down the fifteen blocks from their local park to the only Mexican restaurant in all of Miyagi, then it must be _something_.

Right?

 

**Another little white lie: "I wanna learn the Jump Float Serve, too!"**

This lie is a little more transparent than the others. Yamaguchi calls it straight away: it's not that Oikawa can't do jump floaters, it's that he _won't_.

Oikawa is not _float serve_ kind of tricky. He's the kind of tricky where maybe he'll punch you in the head with a serve, or maybe he'll let a rebound do the punching for him.

Tricky, but not float serve kind of tricky. Whereas Yamaguchi...

If they were in a movie, Yamaguchi might score some bit part—Villager B or Tree #3, maybe, a come-from-behind not-quite-hero—while Oikawa, right from the start, would be Achilles outside the gates of Troy. Calling for Hector's blood.

Nothing alike. Naturally.

For as long as they stand on the court, they will never serve anything alike.

 

**Another little white lie: "Iwa-chan's a real pain in the ass, you know? What a nag!"**

Yamaguchi just laughs. It's not Iwaizumi that's the problem in this situation, it's Oikawa. And maybe Yamaguchi. "Maybe you should have just let him finish talking—"

"Don't you start too, Yama-chan!" It's a warning. Another one. "Since you're still on the same team as my stupid little Tobio-chan, I still have grounds to consider you an enemy!"

"A personal enemy?" Yamaguchi asks, just because he can.

"The _most personal_ of enemies," Oikawa declares.

 _A rival then_ , Yamaguchi thinks and can't help but smile. "Okay."

 

**Another little white lie: "I just want to help out, okay~?"**

Yamaguchi almost feels bad for calling this one. He has an inkling about what Oikawa gains from this whole expedition. It has something to do with Yamaguchi's long-ingrained feelings of inferiority, _acne_ , flaky skin, how much time they've come to spend together training (and eating tacos) after hours, and how Oikawa, at any given time past seven in the morning, looks like he's stepped out of the pages of a magazine. While Yamaguchi does not. Ever. (He's never been able to keep that one tuft of bedhead down for as long as he's been alive.)

"This, too," Oikawa says, dropping what appears to be a small bottle of water into the basket in Yamaguchi's hands. They're at a drugstore. The giant one with the yellow-red-blue façade. Yamaguchi takes the bottle of water back out of his basket and squints at the label. _Toner_ , apparently. For 951 yen?

"What—"

"After the cleanser, before the moisturizer," Oikawa says off-hand, apparently looking for more things to make Yamaguchi buy.

"Right..."

Apparently something in Yamaguchi's tone had lacked belief. Oikawa turns around, imperious, and plants his hands on his hips. He says, "I am the best personal stylist you could ask for. _Thank you, Oikawa-san!_ is what you're going to tell me in three weeks' time, and also, _Please hide me from my sudden hordes of screaming fangirls!_ And I'll say, yes, Tadashi, I have a hidden bunker in the back of the clubroom special-built for just this purpose. Follow me."

At the checkout, Yamaguchi wonders to himself if it's counteractive that, after spending all this money on skincare, he'll be living off instant ramen for the remainder of the month, but figures it's best to stay quiet.

Mostly quiet.

"Oikawa-san..."

"What is it, Yama-chan?"

Yamaguchi cracks a crooked smile but doesn't look up. "Your old teammates were right."

"About what?"

_Your perceptiveness is sometimes as daunting as Tsukki's intelligence._

_If I weren't your friend, would you exploit my weakness?_

"About you, I guess."

Lost in thought, he ends up wondering when the word 'friend' even came into play. And why, where, and how he'd started hoping it could be more.

 

**Another little white lie: "I'm friends with _everyone!_ "**

"I'm still surprised you two even get along," Tsukishima says after class. Yamaguchi hears the unsaid rest of it, from long years of association: _Does he walk all over you, Yamaguchi? Do you let him? I wouldn't be surprised._

Yamaguchi laughs. "Oikawa-san's not that bad, Tsukki. Look! My skin's even cleared up lately! His stuff actually works!"

Tsukishima makes a face of (deliberately) thinly-veiled disgust. "Apparently so. Two girls have asked me if you're single in the past week alone. The second even asked that I tell her how many freckles you had. Are you sure _his stuff_ isn't contagious?"

 _That's so funny, Tsukki, you're such a joker_ never quite makes it out of Yamaguchi's mouth. "What?" he gapes. (And yet, the other side of his mind thinks, this, _this_ is what he's been dealing with for _years_ : girls and their crushes on Tsukishima Kei. Tsukki is still a hell of a lot more intimidating to approach than Yamaguchi will ever be though, so... what? What?)

"Close your mouth, Yamaguchi. You look like a deep sea anglerfish."

"Sorry, Tsukki!"

There is restless fidgeting. Stomach pangs. Yamaguchi grips the strap of his messenger bag. Tsukishima, unaffected, adjusts the headphones around his neck.

"Um," Yamaguchi says. "Um, so... Tsukki. What did you tell them?"

Tsukishima's face remains impassive but his tone is as sour as a green strawberry. "I told them to ask you their goddamn selves. And I've got better things to do with my time than count your stupid nose dots."

 _Of course, of course_. For some reason, Yamaguchi can't stop laughing.

 

**At last, a half-truth: "That's such a shame."**

"He got into Todai?" Oikawa says with wonder. " _The_ University of Tokyo? I can't say I'm too surprised, though. Kunimi doesn't tell me much about actual practice, but he's never failed to complain about how much of a pain in the ass Karasuno's Rational Mind is."

"That's our Tsukki!" Yamaguchi says, proud and... just a little bit devastated.

"So I guess you guys won't be playing on the same team anymore, huh?" Oikawa says.

"Y-yeah..."

Yamaguchi thinks about grade school bullies and ' _Shut up_ 's and ' _It's not surprising, you've practiced serving more than anyone these past five months, after all_ 's and finds he can't string two words together. Now that Tsukishima isn't actually here, now that Yamaguchi's not actively congratulating him and being excited for all the places he just _knows_ Tsukishima will go... he feels a bit overcome.

If Oikawa notices, he doesn't laugh. He slings an arm around Yamaguchi's shoulders.

"Hey, well. That's a shame, Yama-chan, but I can't honestly say I'm too disappointed~"

Yamaguchi looks up. There's something to the tone of Oikawa's voice, a gem hiding in the inflection that makes him think...

" _You'll get to know it_ ," Iwaizumi had said one time a while ago, gruff. " _You'll be able to tell when he's actually being honest. Doesn't happen often though_."

"You and me," Oikawa says, leaning close, conspiratorial like the narrator of a bad sci-fi, "our service game is going to be unstoppable. We're gonna be the ones to do it: take the perfect 25-point set just by serving. That Shittywaka won't know what hit him at the Uni Olympics."

"...please don't take insult tips from Iwaizumi-san," Yamaguchi says, finding his face fold a little upwards. Crack a little smile. "It doesn't suit you at all. And you know we can't _both_ serve in a set without losing at least one point, right...?"

"Wh- Rude!" Oikawa says indignantly, shoving Yamaguchi away. Yamaguchi laughs. "I help you out, I buy you tacos, I practice _magnificent_ serves with you, and this is how you repay me, Yama-chan? Rude. _Rude_."

"Sorry, Oikawa!"

And, there, somewhere between the familiarity of his own apology and the smile in Oikawa's eyes, Yamaguchi finds a kind of comfort. Something that tells him, even if things are going to be a little different from now on, everything will work out alright.

He can hold out hope.

 


End file.
